


Compromise

by AnnieVH



Series: Behind Closed Doors [31]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Adultery, Alternate Universe, Cheating, F/M, Rumbelle - Freeform, pre rumbelle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 03:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3712462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnieVH/pseuds/AnnieVH
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rumple and Milah get home after she found him in Belle’s apartment.<br/>Set after “Belle Speaking”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Compromise

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter contains mentions of adultery, abusive relationship, and just a terrible marriage.
> 
> Pairings for this verse: eventual Rumbelle and Swanfire.  
> Warnings for this verse: abusive relationship, implied non-con situations, child-abuse, violence, infidelity, very anti-Milah.
> 
> A HUGE THANKS to Maddie (maddiebonanafana.tumblr.com) who did the beta for this one-shot!

Rumple tried to start several conversations with Milah, but she refused to speak the entire ride home. Asking if she wanted to eat out, or if she was feeling better, or if she’d like to tell him what was wrong didn’t elicit the slightest response. It was driving him crazy. Despite dreading her outbursts of any kind, it was the silence that he hated and feared the most. Whenever she locked herself inside her own head, it meant she was snowballing her thoughts into something much worse.

He needed a reaction. If she started screaming or crying, at least he’d know what he’d have to deal with once they got home. But instead, he got the silent treatment. That could mean she’d be perfectly fine in five minutes, or kick him awake in the middle of the night to demand answers, and Rumple hated that she had complete control over the conversation without saying a word.

Finally, when they got to the kitchen and she seemed ready to go back upstairs and slam some doors, he decided that beatingaround the bush was doing him no any favors and a more direct confrontation would, at the very least, let him know where they stood.

“Milah, I know you’re mad and I understand why,” he said. “But Belle needed help.”

“No one else could have helped her, I’m sure,” Milah answered. She was sitting at the kitchen table, still looking anywhere but in his eyes. Not because she was ashamed or sad, she simply didn’t want to acknowledge his presence.

“Actually, no,” he argued. “Dr. Hopper didn’t know what was going on, and there were only children in the library.”

“Uh-hun,” she dismissed, playing with the strap of her purse. “Did you have to go into her apartment?”

“I was afraid she’d faint going up the stairs.”

“And after that you stayed there because…”

“Because she was upset and I wanted to make sure she was alright.”

“Wow. What a good Samaritan you are.”

Rumple waited for her to say anything else, but she didn’t.

He threw his arms up, surrendering. “Milah, what do you want me to tell you?”

“There’s nothing you can say. You made a promise and you broke it.”

“How? How did I break my promise?” he demanded, a little louder than he first intended.

She remained unaffected. “You promised not to encourage her. Now you’re going up to her apartment to chat. Was it like this with Cora? Though I am sure you had the  _noblest_  of intentions this time,” she added, when he tried to speak up. “Married men always do when they’re nice to single women who are half their age.”

“You’re the one who likes them younger, Milah.”

The answer floated out of his mouth so fast he couldn’t think twice and hold it back in time. He knew he was in trouble long before Milah’s head snapped up and demanded, “What did you  _just_  say?” But if he had to be completely honest, it was a pleasure to make her lose that neutral tone that was making  _him_  feel like the irrational one in the conversation.

The answer she wanted was a quiet, “Nothing.” Followed by a fast exit. And that might have been the easiest way out, but he had been trying to start this conversation for too long to back down now.

“I said that we both made mistakes,” he answered. “And that we have to stop throwing our infidelities on each others face.”

“My mistake was a quickie,” she snapped, getting up. “Your mistake was a one year long affair-”

“Six months.”

“ _Whatever_ , Malcolm! Six months! You loved another woman and planned on walking out on me. How isn’t that worse than whatever I might have done with Killian in one night?”

Rumple didn’t have an answer to that, so he stayed quiet.

“And you know what? I took you back. You didn’t want to be with me anymore and you only came back because the Mayor’s wife got tired of playing you. But I cheat on you  _once_  and were ready to file for divorce. How is that fair?”

Rumple opened his mouth, but closed it quickly. He didn’t know what to say.

Milah continued. “If anybody had the right to leave and never look back it would be me, and I didn’t because I love you. Clearly, I love you more than you love me.”

She stopped to breathe. In those few seconds of silence, Rumple tried to argue, “Honey, that is not true.” And if she had given him the chance, he’d had the means to prove her wrong. After all, a one night stand was not the only thing he agreed to overlooked when he came back home to give their marriage yet another chance.

However, she didn’t give him the chance.

“No?” she retorted, growing loud again. “I asked you to do something simple: do not encourage her. And now I catch you in her apartment-”

“For goodness sake, Milah. We were  _talking_!”

“It is not appropriate!” she screamed, making him look over his shoulder at the closest window. The last thing he needed was the neighbors overhearing another fight. She didn’t seem to care, though, and continued even louder. “You’re a married man and you shouldn’t be alone with her in her apartment! Especially not after all the grief you give me for drinking with other men. In public places. In front of other people.”

She stopped and allowed him to answer.

For a moment, it seemed that he wouldn’t. She had a point. She had many points. He had spent six months waiting for the best moment to end his marriage, only to find out what he had with Cora was a lie. He thought he’d end up alone and that Milah would use the letter he had left behind – the one she usually called his “cowardice stamp” whenever she wanted to twist the knife a little – to get anything and everything she wanted in the divorce, including Bae’s sympathy. Instead, she had forgiven him and never mentioned the incident to their son.

However,  _his_  reaction to her infidelity had been moving out of the house for three weeks and let Bae convince him to see a divorce lawyer. Not that Bae hadn’t practically dragged him from the house and to New York to begin with. If it had been up to his son, he’d be divorced before that hellish night was over.

Milah was still staring at him, waiting for an apology and a promise to never do it again.

Instead, he sighed, allowing the weight of the conversation to fall heavy on his shoulders.

“Do you ever get the feeling we spend more time trying to save our marriage than actually being married?”

His words were spoken softly, but that, more than anything else, seemed to shake her.

Milah’s voice dropped to a careful whisper when she asked, “What are you saying?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

He tried to escape to the living room. A few minutes of peace to collect his thoughts would do him well. But Milah followed close behind.

“You’d feel the same if it was me,” she pressed, much more quietly than before, but still demanding.

“Perhaps,” he conceded. “But when you told me it wouldn’t happen again, I believed you.” He turned to face her. “Hell, I almost lost Bae because I came back, does that mean nothing to you?”

“Of course not,” she said and, for the first time, he could see a glimpse of guilt in her eyes.

“I said I forgave you and I meant it,” he continued. “I trust that you won’t do that again, and it’s only been one year. It’s been almost thirteen since Cora and you still act like I’m just waiting for the next opportunity.”

It was her time to not know what to say. Milah wasn’t used to having debates. Not that he’d call her inflexible, she could compromise given the right argument, she just didn’t give him the chance to come up with one most times.

Given the terrible mood she had been in the past three weeks, Rumple expected her to turn her back on him and slam a door, since she couldn’t get an apology out of him by rational means. A few more hours of silent treatment would do the trick.

Instead, she said, “I’m a difficult woman to love sometimes.”

Her tone was so sheepish that it disarmed him. It even made him feel a little guilty.

He came up to her and gave her a hug.

“Well, I love you,” he said. “Even the difficult parts.”

She hugged him back and said, “I love you too.” She paused. “And I know you didn’t mean harm.”

“I didn’t. She’s my friend. She’s Bae’s friend, for goodness sake, Milah, he’d never forgive me.”

She tensed in his arms, but held her tongue.

He said, very tentative, “If I agree to only meet her in the library, or, otherwise, always in a public place, would that put your heart at ease?”

“And how about the shop?”

“Only the front of the shop.”

She didn’t reply.

“I cannot bar her from the shop, Milah.”

“I know,” she admitted, reluctantly. “Yes. I think that’s acceptable.”

He sighed with relief. “Thank you, love.”

“I trust you,” she said, though her heart wasn’t fully in it.

“It means a lot, Milah.”

And he meant it. One night that didn’t end with him fumbling for her forgiveness. That was a step in the right direction.

**Author's Note:**

> A list of all one-shots in verse chronological order can be found here: http://annievh.tumblr.com/post/102166515522/behind-closed-doors-warnings-domestic-abuse
> 
> I'm still taking prompts for this verse if anybody wants to send them.
> 
> I'm also doing a ASK MY CHARACTERS (annievh.tumblr.com/ask).


End file.
